not, but the whispering trees seemed to have the
woman-voice.

He sees the light now; it is the harbour light, and Michael Blake
presses swiftly on, his heart upbraiding the laggard feet.

He stands now before the door, but that same heart, strangely wavering,
refuses to go in. The hour has struck for Michael Blake, the hour for
which his soul has waited long; but strange forces seek to hold him
back. The chiefest of these is fear; he feels he is hurrying his
judgment day, and when God would punish men, thinks he, He endows them
with deep and burning love--for otherwise He cannot speak to them in the
eternal tongue. The trembling man turns as if to go back.

"It is too light," he murmured, "still too light," for the memory of
another night has arisen upon him with judgment in its wings.

As he moves noiselessly from the door-step, he pauses by the window. It
is partly open, for the night is mild. A woman's figure moves before it,
so close that he could almost touch--and his arms go out unbidden, God's
retrievers, though they knew it not. He controls himself, and steps back
a pace, for she has passed to the other side of the room. Beside an old
chest of drawers she kneels, and his heart burns with eager passion as
he beholds the beauty of her face. Time, and sorrow, and God, have
worked together. Unto them all she hath submitted, and they have held to
their holy task till the beauty of peace rewards their secret toil.

She is lifting something from the drawer and the light falls upon it.
Another, and still another, she takes up in her gentle hands, smiling
down on them the while--they are a child's outgrown possessions, bits of
clothing some, and some, broken toys, such as mothers take into their
immortal keeping when children have spurned them from their own.

And what is that, shining bright, held longer than the others, still
smiling down upon it, her bosom heaving more heavily than before? He
knows, he knows--it is a little brooch, so little, but of gold, given
her long ago in the first glad sacrifice of love. She kisses it, and the
tears fall fast upon it, the lovely face suffused. It is tenderly
restored to its hiding-place, and the graceful form is full-bowed now.

He can see the white clasped hands, and the movement of the pure lips he
also sees. The words he cannot catch--for God is close, and the voice is
low. But the fragrance of prayer steals out to him, and the Interpreter,
once called the Man of Sorro